“Sit up straight,” Father said. “I don’t know how many times I need to tell you, Avril.”

“Yes, Father,” she muttered, stabbing her fork into her food, not looking up. Her back did straighten, though, however little attention she paid him – or indeed he paid her; beyond cursory glances to check posture, he hadn’t said a word, paid an iota notice to his daughter.

A silence descended on the great marble dining room. Just the clinking of silverware. Father occasionally turning his newspaper, taking a sip of wine.

Ivy had seen some dining rooms as extravagant as this gaudy marble-clad one, but not many. Or a single, really. Ysulla’s, to which she’d been summoned – what, twelve hours ago? It felt longer than that. But so much had happened.

This one was cleaner, more of a modern aesthetic than Ysulla’s, whose had been crumbling, dark, and rustic. Lots of white … Ivy would say too much. Enough to look sterile, losing any potential for charm, because it resembled a hospital, however dressed up it might be with the paintings lining the walls and the statues and the marble pillars. It looked like Ivy could eat off the floor. More than perfectly kept, almost neurotically kept – not even the slightest marring. But, she supposed, that was what millionaires could afford. Or this world’s version of them. It was picked over by servants constantly.

In real life, it was, Ivy meant. This image of Avril’s home was a simulacrum. A creation of her mind. The details could easily be incorrect, warped by her memories.

It was an odd experience, being in a dream. The clarity of the fabrication. In certain ways, it was pristine; Avril herself, especially, and anything she was looking at: the dining table, the piles of food laid in front of her, which she’d barely touched, only stirred around with her fork, occasionally frowning while lost in thought. ‘Father’, too, Ivy could make out in sharp detail, the white, neatly trimmed stubble, the crisp edges of his charcoal suit, his strong jaw and icy blue eyes, same as his daughter’s. The wrinkles on his face: forties or fifties, at a guess? A silver fox. Ivy didn’t prefer men, but she could admit he was attractive, and not in a ‘for his age’ way, but genuinely. She saw where Avril got her looks from. Especially the glint of arrogance in her eyes.

Other things – the paintings on the wall, or especially what lay beyond doorways – were faded out of focus, like Ivy had misplaced her glasses.

Why Avril was dreaming about having dinner with her father … well, Ivy assumed she’d be figuring out soon enough. The whole thing had more coherence than she’d expected. Ivy’s own dreams were often nonsensical, and she’d been wondering if something like that was what she’d arrive to. Or perhaps something about Ivy having delved here had brought it into coherence. This power wouldn’t have been much use if Ivy couldn’t understand what was happening.

“You’re even more mopey today than usual,” Father sighed, finally putting down his newspaper. “What have you done, Avril?”

She twitched.

“Done?” she asked politely. “Why, nothing. Today was move-in day at Ravenwood. What could possibly have gone wrong?”

The cognitive dissonance didn’t set in; why Avril would be at her father’s mansion instead of Ravenwood’s campus if today was move-in day. Dream logic held dominion, right now.

Ivy wanted to experiment with her powers – see what she could do and change inside this dream – but found herself enthralled by the play being conducted. The sure-to-come crashing and burning Ivy could see from a mile away; where this conversation was leading with her father, whom Avril clearly held with maybe not fear, but certainly a hesitance by the way she guarded her words so carefully.

“Then why do you mope?” Father asked irritably. “You’ve always been emotional, but this is excessive.”

“What gives you the impression I’m moping?”

Father gave a pointed look to her plate, in which she’d pushed around her mashed potatoes enough it’d smeared across the plate in a fine paste.

She grimaced and set her fork down.

“Lost in thought,” she clarified. “Not moping. And certainly not for any particular reason.”

Even Ivy could heard the falseness in her words. A horrible cover. But this was a dream; Avril wasn’t working with her full faculties. A railroaded plotline pre-fabricated, she had no choice in where it was heading, not really.

Not that she’d handled Ivy’s meeting well, with no such excuse. But, ah, for all she’d been a disaster, Avril had to have at least some skill in these kinds of scenarios; in social deftness. She hadn’t reached the heights she had by accident. Was a politician’s daughter, or something of the sorts, with plenty of experience in speaking and leading. Her collapse had been a perfect, unfortunate storm, in the case of their meeting. Or so Ivy assumed.

“The Headmaster, wasn’t it?” Father guessed – a truly astounding one, from Ivy’s perspective. At least, until the follow up: “I knew that girlhood crush of yours would get in the way. What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Avril stuttered, likewise surprised by how quickly her father had seen through her.

“You met her, already?” Father leaned forward in his chair, the first hints of emotion appearing on his face – alarm. “Avril. Tell me you haven’t done anything stupid.”

“I would never, o-of course.”

“Iverius Drovelia is not someone the Ikrinas family can afford to be viewed poorly by.”

“Obviously not,” Avril said, strained. “I-I’m well aware of that fact.”

Father stared at her. “Tell me what happened, Avril.”

Avril placed her hands – they were shaking – in her lap.

“Nothing.” She hesitated, then cleared her throat. Looked down at her hands. “Perhaps w-we had a before-semester meeting, and I wasn’t as eloquent as I could have been. But that’s it,” she rushed to say. “A situation I assure you I have under control.”

A dead silence fell.

Father stood – then sat.

“How bad was it?” Father rubbed his brow. “No, don’t tell me. You have it under control? You promise that?”

“W-Without a doubt.”

Father stared at Avril; his doubt was plain. He rubbed his brow again. 

“Anything you need to do, Avril, to fix this. Ingratiate yourself. There is no ally worth more than Iverius Drovelia – she is your gateway to greatness. The family’s gateway. What is the point of my arranging your role – not a simple task if you’ve forgotten, even for me – if you squander it with social ineptitude?”

“I’m aware,” Avril said shakily. “It’s handled. I s-swear on it.”

Father studied her.

Ivy, invisible to both, could see the way his hands were clenching in his lap. A funny detail, considering Avril herself couldn’t see it, blocked by the table. 

Ivy saw an opportunity here – a segue she could take advantage of. But it assumed she could wrangle her powers into compliance, which was very much not guaranteed. Ah, well, she needed to try. At worse, she’d chalk a failure up to practice.

She closed her eyes, tried with all her might to seize control of a single aspect of the dream: Father.

It clicked.

Father leaned back in his chair. 

“Ingratiate yourself,” he said amusedly. “Hm. A funny choice of phrasing, isn’t that? Iverius has a reputation for preferring women, you know.”

Avril’s face went blank – the statement, presumably, out of character for her perception of her father. The dream had derailed from its set path, whatever it would have been, and had surprised Avril accordingly.

“I wasn’t aware,” Avril said carefully, still taking things as if they were reality, just caught off guard. “What’s that to do with anything?”

“With this crush of yours …” he shrugged. “Perhaps there’s a simple way to regain her favor. You’re a young, beautiful girl, aren’t you?”

Her face went slack. It took several seconds for her to process what he’d said.

“You can’t be implying –?”

“You’re willing to do what this family needs, no? Or are those empty words?”

“Of course not. But –? W-Wouldn’t that just tarnish our name? For me to –?”

“Have some discretion about it,” Father said dryly. “Indeed, we hardly need you obtaining a reputation for promiscuity. So be subtle. I know it’s a difficult concept.”

Avril almost swayed in her chair. Her head was visibly spinning. For a multitude of reasons: for the unexpectedness of her own father suggesting such a thing and … by the way she squirmed in her chair and a flush was crawling up her neck … excitement.

“You want me to … ? With … the Headmaster?” 

Perhaps Avril’s excitement was why this dream hadn’t collapsed in the first place. Ivy suspected if she tried to deviate things too far from the norm, what would be considered plausible to Avril, the whole scenario would collapse, the dream would fizzle and she would wake. But while her father’s words were out of character, this was something she wanted – maybe not consciously, since she seemed too modest and proud for that, but certainly subconsciously.

“I expect you to do what you must,” Father said in short, picking back up his newspaper. “An Ikrinas uses all tools available, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, Father … I suppose she would …”

Ivy let the dream collapse there; stepped out.

Not a guarantee to anything, Ivy thought as her office trickled back into sight, but the seeds were planted. 

Maybe she would drop some hints in their next meeting … subtly show herself open to such ‘methods’ of Avril regaining Ivy’s favor. 

It could work, perhaps.